As a small business owner, you may feel frantic, trying to fit in all your duties in what seems to be a short amount of time. Time management is not only important in running your company successfully, but also handling your stress levels.
To help you out, here are 8 rewarding time saving tips to get more done at your business.
1. Try Time Blocking
When your phone notifications go off, you may be anxious to address whatever it is straight away, whether it's an employee chat or a meeting reminder. These little interruptions in your day can be distracting, and even if you take only 30 seconds to address them, it can take a while to regain your focus.
If you find yourself needing more time during the day, try time blocking for your communications. Set schedules for when you check your phone and/or email, and turn off notifications for the entire workday. Of course, you should be reachable in case of emergencies, so let your employees know the workarounds for "do not disturb" mode, such as calling twice in a row to get through to you on the phone.
2. Plan Your Day Before Beginning
You may not like a rigid schedule, but it's probably what will be most effective in saving you time at work. Each morning, before you start the workday, sit down and write out a rough schedule of what you want to achieve. By doing so, it can help you move onto more important tasks if needed.
Whatever's left over from the previous day, you can schedule it into the next day, to finish it up. Otherwise, you can take several big responsibilities and split them into different days to tackle it efficiently while still taking care of other lesser tasks.
3. Log Your Business Days
Take a few days to log everything you do in your business day, down to the very minute. At the end of this experiment, take a good look at how much time you're spending on certain tasks.
When you look at things from a top-down perspective, it'll be easy for you to pinpoint where you're wasting your time during the day. For instance, it may not seem like much time, but those few minutes you spend browsing Reddit at various parts of the day can add up to at least 30 minutes, if not a few hours.
Once you've identified tasks that eat up good chunks of your time, then you'll be more aware of them and can stop yourself before it gets too far. You can then set a limit for yourself, like only loading up Reddit during your lunch break.
4. Delegate Your Responsibilities
It may be tempting to try and handle all business responsibilities on your own, but it's not feasible. Not only will you exhaust yourself, but you'll also spread yourself too thin to do each task optimally.
When you delegate your responsibilities, you'll free up more time to deal with more important issues regarding your business. You'll also enable your employees to use their talents to the fullest since they'll have responsibilities in their areas of expertise. This gives you the chance to utilize your management skills rather than micromanage everything inside of your company.
5. Attend Important Meetings Only
It's important to attend business meetings, but is it really necessary for you to attend every single one? You may want to know all the inner workings of your company, but trying to attend every meeting will eat up valuable time you can spend doing more important things.
Instead of attending every meeting scheduled, try to whittle it down to just those that directly concern you. For example, if there's a marketing meeting about what to produce next for content, you don't have to attend.
Instead, you can ask your marketing manager for a small breakdown on what was achieved during that meeting. A short email that can be read in a few minutes will suffice.
6. Use Automation Tools
When you have projects with many stakeholders, they rarely flow in an efficient manner. One employee can be done with their part, then take some time handing off the document to the next employee so they can do their part. And if there's any editing needed from the previous worker, communicating that need can be inefficient.
With a useful automation tool, all stakeholders can work on one document so there's no hand-off needed. They're all assigned parts in the workflow, plus, there's the capability for automated assembly to save some time.
7. Install Team Communication Programs
Getting up to ask a question can be a huge waste of time; not only do you have to physically go over, then you have to make small talk before you get around to the question. One simple question can turn into a 30-minute conversation.
Having a team chat program makes it easier for someone to ping another worker. Quickly upload documents, or even get into video chat to share screens, all with the click of a button. Not only are these features instantaneous, but you and your employees can even multitask while waiting for an answer.
8. Try to Work Away from Your Employees
If you work in-office all the time, your employees know you're there, which means they'll come bother you with all sorts of requests, especially if your office is near theirs. Try to have an office either away from the main bit, or work from home when you can.
Try to use the chat programs to communicate with them instead of having them come to the door. That way, you can choose when to answer, and can do so succinctly.
Use These Time Saving Tips to Boost Productivity
With these 8 time saving tips under your belt, hopefully, you'll be able to achieve more with less time. That way, you can reduce your stress levels and gain more time to spend with your loved ones.
If you would like more tips on running your business, then check out our blog section on entrepreneurship.
